2014 was hottest year on record

26th Jan 2015 | 0 Comments

2014 was the UK's warmest since records began in 1910 according to the Met Office and other leading research organisations. This means that eight of the UK's top ten warmest years have occurred since 2002.

It was also the warmest year in the Central England Temperature series, which dates back to 1659, and is the longest running record of its type.The UK's mean temperature for the year was 9.9C - that is 0.2 degrees higher than the previous record set in 2006.

But no month saw record temperatures - instead each month was consistently warm, according to the Met Office. This confirms an underlying global warming trend outlined in December 2014 by the World Meteorological Organisation.

It was the warmest year on record for all nations and regions in the UK apart from Northern Ireland, which had its joint third warmest year behind 2007 and 2006.

The map shows 2014 temperatures as a difference to the long term (1981-2010) average

Rainfall records continue

2014 was the UK's fourth wettest year with 1297.1 millimetres of rainfall. Five of the UK's top six wettest years have occurred since 2000, according to the data.

It was also within the 20 wettest years in the England and Wales Precipitation series which dates back to 1766. However, no individual regions had their wettest year on record. A large contribution to the high annual rainfall total came from very wet weather in January and February.

A year of global extremes

2014 was also the warmest year on record for global temperatures reaching 0.68C (1.24F) above the long-term average, US government scientists have said.

This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades," said Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies."While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases," he added.

The World Meteorlogical Societys highlighted a number of record-breaking weather events around the world in 2014.:

* The UK's last winter in which 12 major Atlantic storms battered the country bringing nearly double the usual rainfall.
In September, parts of the Balkans received more than double the monthly rainfall and parts of Turkey were hit by four times the average.

* The town of Guelmin in Morocco was swamped by more than a year's rain in just four days.
Western Japan saw the heaviest August rain since records began.

* California endured persistent drought, as did parts of China and Central and South America.